Shake Your Foundations
by rogue-scholar07
Summary: Nearly a year after the events of "Learning to Breathe", Shadowatch finds themselves trying to make sense of the new rules in the Mutant-Human War initiated by Magneto. One thing is certain: nothing will be the same once the smoke clears.
1. Temporary Goodbyes

**Well, here it is. The next installment in the Shadowatch Saga. Next, we get to see just what the heck they were up to during "Parallel Lives" and "The Misfit Chronicles". For better or for worse, things will never be the same for Shadowatch once the dust settles and the smoke clears. **

**Shake Your Foundations**

**1. Temporary Goodbyes**

Mutants. _Homo Superior_. Villains? Heroes? Threat to humanity? Misunderstood souls? These questions and several like them permeated common speech in the days following the big reveal and the Sentinel battle.

Every town in the world was talking once the initial shock wore off, and Chicago, Illinois, was no different. Everyone seemed to have their own opinions, and each of said opinions was different from the next. The cast of the local hit cable show "Growing Up Biker" also had their own opinions, but their lawyers thought it best not to voice them. As you might guess, this didn't go over very well at all for the group of mutant teenagers and their guardians.

"Remind me again just _why_ we can't give a press release stating that we support mutant rights?" A beautiful blue-eyed blonde girl in a white blouse, pink skirt, and white high heels asked. Regan Wyngarde, resident telepathic illusionist also known as Lady Mastermind, had blossomed into quite the proficient businesswoman since the series began nearly a year ago. She was usually seen working the front register on camera rather than actually fixing anything. Since her mother had once been a famous model, no-one was surprised that the Italian bombshell turned out to be one of the most attractive young women in all of Cobra.

Spike Freeman, TV producer and the man who initially bargained with Zartan to get the kids on television in the first place, groaned. "It's too controversial! You _know_ that!" He was currently trying to talk some sense into the team and a few of their handlers. Maybe getting teenagers on film wasn't such a good idea.

"So was taking all of us to the modern art museum, but you did it anyway." A dark haired ruddy-skinned teen wearing a red polo shirt, blue jeans, and red Converse sneakers pointed out. He was Neal "Thunderbird" Sharra, and had the ability to generate heated plasma and fly. He had hit a growth spurt of his own over the last year, but was still the shortest boy on the squad. On camera, the Bangladeshi mutant could be seen stocking shelves or handing out tools to the other cast members, all while consistently messing up American figures of speech. Some of his mangled phrases had become small-time Internet memes.

"Talk about a disaster!" A lanky blond boy in a white t-shirt, yellow fleece vest, dark wash jeans, and yellow and black checkered shoes groaned, rubbing his temple and eyes. Calvin "the Mimic" Rankin, the last person to have joined the squad, was the son of one of Cobra's hired research scientists and gained his powers through a mishap with one of his father's experimental mutagens. Following his less than stellar induction onto the team, the power-copying mutate began the arduous process of learning when to keep his opinions to himself. "So much for learning about culture."

"It wasn't that bad." A muscular teenage boy covered in dark green scales from his head to the tip of his alligator-like tail grinned widely, revealing a set of sharp teeth. His long neon-green streaked black hair was tied in a messy ponytail, while gold eyes sparkled with the not-so-distant memory of the infamous "Art, Not-Art" exchange. He leaned back into his chair lazily, giving everyone a better view of the WWF logo on his black T-shirt. "Seeing ol' Vince hanging like a booger from that nose statue was totally worth the trip!" Steve Garrett, mutant nephew of Dreadnok poacher Gnawgahyde, was brought to Chicago and the Dreadnok team after his parents tossed him out of the house because of his mutation.

"You _would_ think it was funny, Iguana-boy!" A British teen with a barely-tamed mane of brown hair and bright green eyes grumbled. He wore an Iron Maiden t-shirt, leather vest, and denim jacket with ripped jeans, heavy boots, and numerous spiked leather armbands. Vincent James, commonly called "Virus" due to his ability to possess and control electronics and his overall annoying personality, could be seen on film making updates to existing technology in the garage or scheming up plans to win the affection of the leader of the squad- A blue-scaled hydrokinetic shapeshifter known as Atlantis. "Your lesser evolved brain only ever seems to find pleasure in causing others pain."

"Not that the rest of us _mind_ in your case." A short girl with spiked teal-tipped black hair, pale turquoise eyes, and gray skin stated. She wore a short black dress with a purple cropped jacket over the top of it, purple striped tights, and black platform-soled Mary-Jane shoes. "Watching him beat you up is a favorite pastime of ours!" Eventide, the dhampir (half-human half-vampire) more commonly referred to as Kristen Mortisson, captivated audiences everywhere with her bubbly personality and slightly morbid sense of humor. She also shocked viewers by consistently lifting objects easily twice her body weight.

"And to be perfectly fair, the trip to the ballpark was also quite a mess." A tanned girl with long brown hair and glistening honey-brown eyes pointed out with a shrug. Known only as Corona, this Hispanic beauty charmed viewers with her lively personality and restricted opponents by creating ropes or ribbons of multi-colored energy to bind them. Today she wore a tight orange tank-top with equally tight capris and tan wedge-heeled sandals. "I thought the owner was going to sue us for sure!"

"Yeah, Ry and Mitch were kinda eating him out of hot dogs and popcorn." A tall blue-scaled girl with black-striped blonde hair and dark blue eyes put in with a slight chuckle. She was Andrea (usually shortened to Andi unless she was in trouble for something) Creed, second generation mutant and Shadowatch's squad leader. Her gray t-shirt and black jeans did nothing to hide the fact that the shape-shifting hydrokinetic mutant known as Atlantis had _finally_ developed an enviable set of feminine curves. It was now quite common for her to be caught fielding some rather awkward questions in her fan-mail.

"That's exactly the point!" Spike bellowed, desperately trying to get through to the young mutants. "The public is terrified of mutants right now. They don't understand all the particulars of that giant robot fight, and until they become more comfortable with living and working alongside mutants in general, outing yourselves could be deadly."

"Be that as it may, I'm sick and tired of hiding in this damn closet!" Andi exclaimed, pounding her fist on the wall in frustration. "All of us can take care of ourselves! It's not like we don't know basic self-defense!"

"No!" Spike shook his head. "No way, no how. No PSAs. No press releases. No coming out episodes until the network tells you."

"For now." Regan added. "When something terrible and mutant-related goes down in this city—and trust me, it will—we will deal with the situation as we see fit. Eventually one of these new hate groups is going to take things too far and someone is going to have to run damage control."

The man sighed. "Fine." He glanced past the kids over to a large, dreadlocked African-American man behind them. "Keep them from killing themselves."

"I can only speak for my boys on that." The man chuckled. Burn-Out, the Dreadnok's best mechanic and now the shop owner of Burnout's Custom Cycles, had been assigned the task of mentoring two of the boys on the team roster—the half-brothers Bryan "Chaos" Dukes and Mitch "Golem" Dukes. "If you want that one to behave," he jerked a thumb Andi's direction, "you need to talk to Zartan."

"He cannot get back from that conference soon enough!" Spike grumbled.

* * *

"You're leaving? All of you?" Burn-Out gaped incredulously. He and the other handlers were speaking to Zartan via video chat. "Is this a joke?"

"I'm afraid not." The Dreadnok leader sighed, not pleased about having to re-work the structure of two teams on such short notice. Sure, long term jobs paid well, but he wondered if this gig in Bayville (with the Baroness, no less!) would be worth the effort. With he and his siblings all going along, something would have to be done about the kids. "We could be gone for months this time."

"There is no f'n way the three of us can handle ten kids for months on end!" Heart-Wrencher spoke up. "Can't you take a few of them with you?"

"No. First of all, half our kids know someone in Bayville, which could potentially jeopardize the mission." Zartan pointed out. "And even if that weren't an issue, there's no way in hell we could convince our kids to help capture other mutants." Especially not when a good portion of the team had once been captured themselves…

"Can you at least speed the assignment up?" Burn-Out inquired.

"I won't know until we arrive, but if there is _any_ way at all to make dragging back some of those brats go faster, I will take it."

* * *

"How long is 'long term', exactly?" Kristin asked, her face scrunched up in thought. Everybody had crammed into both communications rooms for this chat.

"We don't know yet, kiddo." Zarana sighed. "Depends on how successful we are."

"Are you going anywhere exotic?" Corona asked, eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Somehow I don't think Bayville, New York, is considered a very exotic destination." Zandar rolled his eyes. If he wanted to get stuck looking after a bunch of teenagers, he could have just gone _home_…

Andi felt her spine straighten before her brain could tell the rest of her body not to do it. She couldn't afford to react to this. Too much was on the line here…if her _real_ connections to the Bayville mutants were discovered…

"I see one of you has already figured out the reason for this excursion." Zartan's green eyes locked onto her blue ones.

"Mutants. They're sending you to capture mutants." She did her best to keep the alarm out of her voice despite knowing she would not completely succeed.

The small communications room erupted with the protests of nearly a dozen teenagers.

"What?!"

"You gotta be kidding."

"No way!"

"This is bogus!"

"Why do they need other mutants when they have us?"

"Settle down!" There was no need to yell or scream the command to Shadowatch. In fact, Zartan _knew_ that the tone of his voice usually got the group's attention far quicker than the volume. The kids were far smarter than his co-workers wrote them off as being. "Believe me, I would much rather spend the next few months working with the lot of you than listening to the Baroness's endless bitching and pretending to be a qualified teacher, but at the moment it cannot be avoided."

"Can you guys throw the mission?" Bryan frowned. Zartan shook his head.

"Not if we want to get paid, and since this is a rather large paycheck it would be foolish to intentionally try to sabotage this job."

"But if you're dragging Torch along for the ride, there's a good chance it will be unintentionally sabotaged." Regan pointed out. "This won't last more than a couple months at the most."

"With any luck, you'll be right about that." Zarana grumbled. "Look, while we're gone, you kids need to maintain your own cover. The last thing we need is for the Joes to have a reason to go snooping around Chicago."

"Don't worry; we got it covered." Kristen confidently smirked. "Just bring yourselves back here _alive_ when this is all over with."

* * *

"Don't you think you should have told him?"

Andi wasn't surprised to find Kristen invading her room after the conference call. "How?" She inquired of her much shorter companion. "_How_ was I supposed to tell the adults anything with everyone else standing there?"

"Well, you could still call and come clean." Kristen folded her arms across her chest.

"What good would it do?" Andi hissed. "Xavier _might_ look the other way if they start asking a few questions, but if our guys start poking around Magneto's crew too much, he **will** get suspicious and we'll all be in trouble." The dhampir shook her head.

"You think the adults aren't going to figure it out on their own?" Pale eyes looked on in disbelief. "All they'll need to do is look at a couple photographs to see what's been omitted in their dossiers."

"The less they know going into this mission, the less likely it will be that any suspicions will be raised." She didn't particularly _like_ keeping secrets from her boss (she owed him a lot more than she wanted to admit), but at the moment there was too much at stake for her to tell the whole truth.

An audible sigh escaped the petite dhampir's ebony-stained lips. She didn't like where this was heading, but she also knew that her friend wouldn't be talked out of it right now. She had met defiant donkeys less stubborn than Andrea Creed. "Fine, but if this blows up in your face, I reserve the right to say 'I told you so'." Andi frowned.

"It will **not** blow up in my face, so there won't be _any_ need for you to tell me that!" She had a better handle on the situation than that!

"Don't say I didn't warn you." Kristen sang as she left, closing the door behind her and leaving Andi to her own thoughts.


	2. Days Go By

**Shake Your Foundations**

**2. Days Go By**

Weeks drug on for the cast and crew of "Growing Up Biker" as the permanent residents of the Dreadnoks' Chicago compound waited for status updates. With their main bosses away on a long-term mission, each update could mean the difference between their return or continued absence.

Nothing seemed quite the same without them. And while Burn-Out managed the Dreadnoks rather nicely, looking out for nearly a dozen super-powered teenagers was enough to make him want to pull his dreadlocked hair out at the roots at times. Everyone was going stir crazy, in desperate need of something to do besides their filming schedule. Hell, at this point, they'd settle from rescuing animals from trees!

Then a confused mutant kid got shot by the cops, and Shadowatch made good on their earlier promise to Spike Freeman.

"Just because we can't _kill_ the cops doesn't mean we can't make them _wish_ they were dead." Regan stated. It was late Sunday night and all ten members of Shadowatch were holding a team meeting in the media room. "Surely there's something we can dig up on them to make their lives hell…"

"Or just tail them and make them really paranoid." Kristen remarked, a particularly devious grin plastered across her face. "They'll never even know I'm there!"

"Both good ideas." Andi conceded, jotting things down on a sheet of scratch paper. "Regan, get with Virus and start digging into the records of those cops: professional and personal. If there's even a _sliver_ of misconduct, I want to know about it." Regan nodded in understanding.

"Of course, my dear." Virus grinned widely, making Steve growl in anger. "If those coppers have anything going on, I'll find it."

"Just shut up and do what she says." Regan scowled at the British mutant as the two left the room. Andi turned to Kristen and Calvin. "You two can take turns tailing them, starting tonight. Don't let them see you or leave any indication of who we are. They will understand why it's happening, and that's all the need to know."

"And the rest of us?" Mitch asked tentatively.

"We prepare our statements; we have a press conference first thing Tuesday morning." Neal stated. Atlantis wanted to hold one sooner, but the adults managed to talk her into giving everyone 24-hours's notice to fine-tune their speeches and get maximum media coverage.

"Spike's gonna be pissed." Mimic whistled.

"He can deal with it. We warned him _weeks_ ago that something like this would happen." Corona huffed.

"What are we even going to say?" Bryan inquired. "I mean, we can't really 'come out' as mutants; we're too closely connected with Cobra for that."

"We don't have to." Andi explained. "Not for this. We can publicly condemn the actions taken by the law enforcement officers in question, offer our sincerest condolences to the family, and release a statement that we support Mutant Rights."

"We're gonna get mobbed." Mimic groaned, falling backward into his chair. "Hate groups are gonna start trying to throw bricks through our windows for this...and worse."

"If they step onto our property, we have the right to defend ourselves, which means we get to beat them senseless." Steve shrugged. "I'm actually looking forward to that part."

"Look, just don't worry about it too much." Kristen waved off the concerned mutate. "We can take care of ourselves, and so can the Dreadnoks."

* * *

"One of you needs to come back ASAP; those kids are up to something." Burn-Out exclaimed over the video chat line. He was currently trying to convince Zartan to send either Zarana or Zandar back to the Chicago base until things calmed back down.

"As much as I would love to, I highly doubt the Baroness will allow us to leave before Friday." The mercenary sighed. "Can't you stall them until then?"

"No." the African-American man stated bluntly. "Creed's all kinds of fired up and Gnawgahyde can't cool her back down."

A groan sounded from the other end of the line. Andrea Creed was the only member of Shadowatch that Zartan personally trained and mentored. The reason for that was that the young squad leader tended to be a regular handful when she got certain ideas into her head. Gnawgahyde—the resident poacher who watched her during Zartan's absences—could handle her when she was calm, but once she got worked up over something, there was very little the Australian big game hunter could do with her. "What is she planning?"

"Public press conference Tuesday; not sure what else she has up her sleeve. Not planning to go on a cop-killing spree yet, though."

"She's not the Creed I'm worried about." Zartan remarked, causing the other man to gape. "Magneto apparently wants the situation handled swiftly."

"And you think he would send Sabretooth to do it?" Burn-Out fought not to wince with his inquiry. Andi's relationship with her father could hardly be considered 'healthy'. The man never bothered to call or write or stop by to visit his daughter; she always had to go visit him, and every time she left, she came back worn out and more easily agitated than usual. It was as if the two did nothing but fight whenever they were left to themselves. Add that argumentative behavior to the fact that Andi tended to be incredibly territorial about 'her turf' (which covered the entirety of Chicago these days) and you got a recipe for disaster. "Boss, relative or no, if she gets in his way, he'll kill her! She's a good fighter, but she can't take him on by herself."

"You think I don't know that?" the other man snapped in irritation. "There's very little I can do about that from this end. Just try to keep her contained until I can get there Friday evening. I will arrange to have Destro pitch in for a few days, if need be." He had a very handy piece of blackmail on the Scotsman, saved for just such an occasion as this.

Burn-Out didn't know how his employer would arrange such a grand feat nor did he care to know. "I hope it'll be enough."

"You and I both."

* * *

Meanwhile, in the secrecy of his lair, Magneto handed out his next set of orders to one of his lieutenants. "You are to go to Chicago and deal with these humans who dared shoot one of our mutant brethren." The master of magnetism stated, glaring at his chosen instrument of destruction. "Make it as messy as possible. Ensure they get our message, but do not leave any evidence of your involvement. Dispatch of anyone who dares stand in your way."

As if he wasn't already going to do that! "You want a 'loud' job, then?" Victor "Sabretooth" Creed grinned evilly, fangs glistening in the harsh artificial light. "_That_ I can do." His daughter would understand…but he couldn't let her get involved. He hadn't checked up on her in a while, but last he heard she was doing well for herself as a mercenary. She also had no interest in anything Magneto had to offer; her boss apparently paid her well enough to make the idea of working for the self-proclaimed 'Savior of Mutantkind' laughable. Not that he necessarily trusted the spook she worked for or his gang of bikers, but he had to admit she was safer there than she was near the Acolytes. She was far too opinionated to stay in Magneto's dubious good favor.

So he would avoid even _seeing_ the girl at all costs. Simple enough. Chicago was a large city and consequently very easy to get lost in. She would never know where to find him.

"Space out the killings if you can. Make them fear you like you were death itself." Magneto elaborated. Creed fought the urge to roll his eyes. Bucket-head paid well enough, but the monologues got old fast.

"Draw it out; make 'em paranoid. I got it. This kind of shit is what you pay me for." The blond mutant grumbled. "When do I head out?"

"I want you in Chicago as soon as possible, but do not make a move until I tell you to do so." The metal-bending mutant answered calmly. "Our fallen comrade will soon be avenged…"

Yeah, yeah. Whatever. As long as he got to rip something apart with his bare hands, Victor didn't care who the hell he 'avenged' or 'revenged'. If things went like he wanted, he would be in and out of Chicago before she even realized he'd been there.


	3. Stand

**Shake Your Foundations**

**3. Stand**

Tuesday morning dawned, bathing the Chicago sky in a warm color bath of golds, pinks and oranges. Despite the early hour and the fact that the entire team needed to be dressed in their finest clothes (or whatever nice clothes they could filch off their housemates), there was remarkably little chatter inside the garage of Burnout's Custom Cycles as news crews gathered outside for the press conference.

"Are you _**sure**_ you want to do this?" Gnawgahyde asked the assembled teens, a note of doubt in his voice. Burn-Out, Heart-Wrencher, and he would be sitting in, but it was really Shadowatch's show today.

"Not as if we have a choice." Andi grumbled, straightening the front of her button-up blouse one last time. "I can't in good conscience let this slide. You got your notes, dude?" She looked to Neal, who nodded an affirmative.

"Yes." He spoke, glancing outside at the makeshift podium rigged with microphones. "They're waiting for us."

"Then I guess we best not keep them waiting any longer." She sighed. "Come on, gang; time to make Spike throw a hissy-fit."

Anyone living in Illinois and within view of a television screen tuned in that morning. While constantly doing public relation stunts or PSAs, the cast of "Growing Up Biker" had never called a press conference before, making this an important occasion. News reporters gathered around the stage readied their pens and writing tablets and double-checked their microphones as the young stars and their handlers walked out of the shop. They lined up single-file behind the podium as one of the public's favorite foreign exchange students, Neal Sharra, stepped up to speak.

"Imagine this with me." He began. "You're a teenager whose only goal in life is simply to survive high school. That's challenging enough, but then odd things start to happen to you. You suddenly feel hot wherever you go, the result of a fever that doctors cannot explain. You don't have the blaring headaches or stiff muscles associated with the kinds of typical childhood illnesses that traditionally cause a fever like yours. In fact, the only other symptom is the intense burning sensation prickling your skin. You've tried lotions, gels, and even soaking in icy water, but nothing seems to help.

"One weekend, just to try to take your mind off your mysteriously non-contagious illness, you go for a walk in the park. That's when everything goes to hell." He paused, collecting himself and giving the reporters a chance to write down their notes before continuing with his speech. "The burning feeling in your hands becomes unbearable, and what has been building inside of you for the past few weeks finally boils to the surface. To your shock and horror, your hands catch fire, but your flesh does not burn. Bystanders and onlookers scream in terror as your fight-or-flight response kicks in. You run away, scared of yourself just as much as those other people are. Unfortunately, your unintentional pyrotechnics display has attracted a handful of cops, who approach you with their guns drawn. Confused and terrified, you throw your hands in the air and scream at them not to come any closer; it's not safe for them to be too close when you don't know exactly what's happening to you. But, as your hands raise upward, a jet of fire shoots out and ignites a tree. You don't even have time to tell the police that it was an accident, because they shot first, putting a bullet through your skull before you could apologize. **This** is what was going through the mind of the young man so senselessly gunned down on Sunday."

As Neal stepped away from the podium and tried valiantly to maintain his composure, Andi Creed—his older and taller cast-mate—stepped up to take his place. Now the press was curious. It was a well-documented fact that tact was not one of the young blonde girl's strong suits. Why have her stand and speak after such a tear-jerking story?

"We, the cast and crew of 'Growing Up Biker', would like to offer our most heartfelt and sincere condolences to the family and friends left behind when the life of this law-abiding young man was cut so tragically and needlessly short over the weekend. No parent should have to bury their child like that." The expression of sorrow on her face hardened into a determined stare that looked misplaced on a fifteen-year-old. "And it was _needless_." She continued, contempt clearly evident in her voice. "I usually don't make it a habit to condemn first-responders or the police, but this occasion is a marked exception. These two officers, trusted by parents and guardians all across the city to keep their children safe from violence, are no longer worthy of the badge they carry. They let fear override their judgment on numerous prior occasions. Accusations of unnecessary use of force and discrimination against minorities litter their service records, and their personal lives, from what we have uncovered, are even worse. The information is out there, if you choose to look for it and honestly wasn't that hard to find. They are an embarrassment to the Chicago Police Department and humanity at large. On behalf of the family and well informed citizens of Chicago, we here at "Growing Up Biker" call for the immediate and swift removal of those two officers from the police force and a bar on their service records so that they may not serve in any law-enforcement roles ever again."

As newsrooms for the major and minor networks buzzed to life in an attempt to search out and confirm the information presented in her speech, a few more experienced reporters eyed the tall girl critically. That sounded like the well-rehearsed speech of an experienced, mature spokesperson; not one that a teenage reality TV star should give at a press conference. She acted far older, far stronger than the other young celebrities who were supposedly her peers. In fact, all of the teenagers seemed to be acting in the most mature fashion anyone had ever seen of the young hooligans. It was like a switch had flipped today, allowing everyone to see that they were neither stupid nor naïve, and certainly not blind.

As she stepped backwards into the lineup with uncanny grace (some had been sure she would trip and fall when she started), Walter O. Jones, warmly referred to as Burn-Out by other bikers, stepped up. Was there really anything else that needed to be said?

"I've been dealing with these kids since before we started filming. Two of them I consider the sons I never had." He glanced proudly to the two Dukes brothers. "We all have our favorites here, but I'm getting off topic. As a role model, caretaker, and legal guardian, it don't make a difference to me what the kids can do. It doesn't matter if one of them wakes up tomorrow with purple skin and yellow eyes; they're still the same kids they always were. We've always skewed the grading curve here on the set, and we continue to be unpopular with certain activist groups. We know that open support of mutants in their campaign to be treated as the human beings they are will make us even more unpopular, but to be honest...we don't care. We don't care about the dirty looks. We don't care about protestors camping with picket signs across the street, and we certainly don't care if hateful adults try to hurt our kids. If the kids don't kick their asses, we **will** and that's a promise. There ain't any way we could tell our kids to hate someone for being different when they're all so different themselves. They're smarter than that, and so are we. Popular or not, we know where we stand. Can the same be said of the rest of you?" Without further elaboration, the muscular African-American man walked away, leading the rest of the cast back inside the shop. Several reporters scrambled for a quick comment, but none got a response.

However, in a matter of only a few hours, the video footage went viral.

* * *

"How _dare_ you!" Spike Freeman's voice roared over the telephone. The producer was far from pleased with this morning's press conference, and was now unleashing his anger on Burn-Out. "I specifically said _**no press conferences! **_What part of that did you people not understand?!"

"And the kids said they would boycott that order if things got hairy, which they did." The African-American Dreadnok wasn't fazed by the producer's outburst. He'd heard far worse conniption fits from Zarana, and the worst Freeman could actually do to them was cancel the show. "They warned you weeks ago about this, Freeman. You seem to have conveniently forgotten that."

"That footage is being replayed all across the country! Everyone knows who those kids are now and it's making my bosses nervous."

"Zartan doesn't seem worried." Of course, Zartan hadn't actually called yet… "Besides, this means that the show will catch the attention of a national audience. _Your_ network may not want us after this, but I'm sure we can find another one." Somebody out there would be willing to deal with the controversy.

Spike growled, clearly unhappy with the ultimatum. The higher-ups over the vast network of stations lumped under the same national name had considered airing "Growing Up Biker" on stations in California, New York, and across the Midwestern states before the press conference. He simply couldn't risk them trying to switch networks right now, not when the quarterly ratings reviews were so close at hands. That show was one of the big money makers for their little corner of the cable market. "We'll see how things play out with the quarterly reviews. I can't make any more promises after that." This could either make ratings soar or nose-dive, and he wasn't entirely sure which one would be the end result.

"That's all we need." Burn-Out remarked. "Don't worry about us; we can take care of ourselves."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Spike groaned.

* * *

Meanwhile, In Bayville…

"This is **unacceptable!**" The Baroness hissed. The Cobra agents chosen for the infiltration mission inside Bayville High School were gathered in an empty classroom during the lunch break. She glared venomously at Zartan and his siblings. "I thought you had those rugrats under control!"

"They are doing exactly what they _should_ be doing." After twenty years with Cobra, the Baroness's outbursts didn't even garner a raised eyebrow from Zartan. "Damage control needed to be done in the Chicago situation. They did not reveal anything about themselves or their affiliation to Cobra. Even if the network chooses to let them go, we still come out on top in this deal. And in case you haven't noticed, _our_ children are not the ones you should be concerned about."

"He's right. Magneto's planning something in Chicago. You heard the audio yourself." Zarana chimed in. "And since the plonker never seems to do his own dirty work, you can bet the Brotherhood will be going as well."

"You cannot let those little delinquents interfere." The Eastern European woman snarled.

"Which delinquents? Ours or theirs?" Zandar asked with a shrug. It was a perfectly valid question, given the circumstances.

"Yours, you baboon! Do not let **your** delinquents engage the **other** delinquents!" The Baroness bellowed. "We cannot afford for either of the other mutant groups to learn of our true identities, and if they fight Shadowatch, they will surely figure it out!"

"That's not going to work very well." Zarana frowned, crossing her arms and shaking her head. "No way is Shadowatch going to let a brawl like that on their turf go unpunished."

"They can pick a fight at a later time." Zartan waved. "I'm sure they will have plenty of other chances to brawl with the Brotherhood." Although whether they took those chances or not was a slightly different matter. The fact that three of the original six members had very strong ties to one of the Brotherhood made matters a bit more problematic than usual. "Besides, the teenagers are not my main concern."

"How could it not be?" Destro's girlfriend countered. "Sure, chaos caused by the X-Men and Brotherhood is good for Cobra if they're left alone, but if a third group comes into play…"

"I can safely say that at present Sabretooth is a more viable threat to our mission than a bunch of social outcasts." The mercenary glared at her. They had yet-to-be-officially-confirmed information that the old Canadian mutant had been sent to Chicago by Magneto for an unspecified mission. "If his job gets in the way of the plans Shadowatch already has, we will be down the only young mutants Cobra presently employs."

"Then tell them to stay out of his way!"

"Yes, that will work** so** well when one of our heavy-hitters happens to also be his daughter." He countered. She stared in astonishment, clearly having forgotten that piece of information.

"His _daughter_?" Zandar put his hand to his mouth, struggling not to laugh at the expression on the Baroness's face.

"Oh, come on now, woman, Cobra has known that for two years! You do not simply **forget** important information like that!"

"Do **not** patronize me, Zartan!"

"Turn-about is fair play! Or unfair play, not that that matters to us." Zarana growled, jumping back into the argument. "Quit trying to tell us how to run our goddamn team!"

"**I** was put in charge of this mission and** I** will manage any issues that might jeopardize its success!" the Baroness hissed.

"Not when it concerns Shadowatch, you won't!" Zartan's tone dropped to a low growl. "**We** will deal with them as **we** see fit when **we** deem it appropriate, even if that means one of us has to leave in the middle of a school day." The kids came first; end of discussion.

"I'd gladly sub in Chemistry." Zandar spoke up. Teaching the damn art class was rather quickly leading to a level of hypertension Shadowatch never deigned to trouble him with. _Their_ kids knew where the boundaries were; these shallow little plonkers didn't even know what boundaries _were_, let alone where they were located. "Art's an elective class; they can do without it for a day or two."

A feline growl sounded from the Baroness. She obviously wasn't happy with that development, but she was fast realizing there wasn't a lot she could actually do to stop it. And it would get Zartan out of her hair for a day or so, which was a real perk in this situation. "Fine." She spat. "But if they mess this up, the blame will fall on _your_ head, Zartan."

"It usually does." The Dreadnok leader grumbled. This was going to be a_ long_ week.


	4. To Speak or Not to Speak

**Shake Your Foundations**

**4. To Speak or Not to Speak**

It wasn't until after classes had let out for the day that most of the Bayville High School student body learned about the now-famous (or infamous, depending on whom you asked) press conference held by the cast of a small-time reality TV show cast in Chicago, Illinois. As opinions usually fell in Bayville, the teenagers were either in full support of their brave peers, or immediately dismissed them and added them to their list of people to hate until the end of time. Of course, there was also a small group of hormonal teenage boys who felt that while they disagreed with the opinions presented, the young women on the show were *just* hot enough to still be considered worthy to go out or sleep with. No matter what the opinion, however, it got people talking, especially the mutant portion of the student body.

"I never thought I'd see it." Lance shook his head in disbelief as he and the rest of the Brotherhood walked toward his jeep. "A bunch of strangers willing to stick their necks out for a mutant kid. Wonder what their deal is?"

"Does it matter?" Pietro scoffed. "They're celebrities. Not the A-list kind, but still famous and probably well-paid. Even if they all turn out to be mutants, I don't think there's any way we could convince them to join us."

"Can't we just enjoy the fact that we have _actual_ supporters and leave it at that?" Wanda groaned. This particular debate had been going on since fourth period, and she was growing rather sick of it.

"Yeah, what she said." Fred grumbled. He'd been unusually quiet since hearing about the video. He hadn't had a chance to look at it himself yet, but he already knew who was involved and how much danger they had just put themselves in. The immovable mutant hoped that his younger brothers and the young woman he'd once considered a younger sister would be all right.

"Fine." Pietro rolled his eyes in dramatic fashion. "I'll change the subject. Did you see the size of the knockers on that blonde chick in the pink dress?"

"Pietro…" his twin sister growled. This was _not_ a discussion she wanted to have to put up with on the ride home.

"Wasn't paying that much attention to the background characters." Lance shrugged. "Although it does make me wanna look up episodes of their TV show; it might be something worth watching."

"...I bet you can look it up on the internet." Fred added slowly.

"Great idea, Freddy. We'll have a TV marathon tonight." The rock-tumbler nodded his approval. "It'll be a nice change of pace for us."

* * *

Predictably (to the senior team members, at least), Professor Xavier decided to hold a discussion about the press conference video that had made its way through the school computer classroom that day. This was a good thing for most students, since pretty much everyone had questions…even though one of them knew better than to ask his.

"I think it's just a stupid publicity stunt." Tabitha grumbled. "Why else would some local reality tarts want to jump on the mutant rights bandwagon?"

"We don't know that." Jean countered. "In fact, we don't know anything about these people other than the fact that they apparently don't give press conferences."

~_Smart move when one of your cast members is a mutant_.~ Kurt quietly thought to himself. Xavier didn't make a habit of digging into his student's thoughts unless they were projecting something. That was a good thing, because bringing up the topic in front of his housemates and teachers could get dicey.

Despite how much she'd changed in the last year, he still recognized the face of his younger sister when she stood up and gave her speech in that video clip. He also knew that, from what she'd told him in their brief (and usually extremely edited) email exchanges that she was happy with her gig in Chicago. Where better to hide from Magneto than in plain sight, on a cable TV show? She could pass her unusual hair coloring off as a dye job and, with her ability to change the color and texture of her skin, she could easily look like an average teenager. There was no need to tell anyone she wasn't at this point in time; especially since the network lawyers, if they knew anything, had probably ordered her to keep quiet.

If it would keep her safe, he would keep quiet about it too.

"We cannot jump to conclusions until we have more information." Kurt hid his confusion as the Professor spoke. Apparently the conversation had continued while he was lost in his own thoughts. "While Cerebro has detected activity in Chicago before, that is no guarantee that those young people are mutants. For now, we should all be thankful that someone has stood up for the young man killed on Sunday. I have a feeling this was more about him than mutant rights in general."

Oh, so nobody noticed his little space-out. Good for him.

But he was still going to have to email Andi this evening and gripe at her. She'd worried the crap out of him today.

* * *

Andi, however, was currently fielding a phone call from her boss.

"Sorry for not giving you guys more of a heads-up, but we needed to do _something_ about this." She sighed. "The press conference was the lesser of several evils."

"_There's nothing to apologize for, kid. You did what needed to be done._" Zartan replied.

"Tell that to Spike." She sorted. "I think he was trying to wreck Burn-Out's eardrums over the phone."

"_I will deal with the irate producer." _He replied. "_Right now, however, I need you and the others to stay home this weekend."_

Well, that was an odd request. "Why? Is something going down?"

"_Potentially, but not something that you kids or our organization needs to become involved in_." He sighed. "_Leave the other mutants to fight this one out_._ Now, I have reason to believe that simply condemning people in public isn't the only ace you have up your sleeve, young lady._"

"Regan and Virus are digging up their records and picking out tidbits to sell to the major news outlets as we speak." She added. "Eventide's teaching Mimic the finer points of making somebody paranoid at their expense, but all the rest of us can do now is wait and hold off the picket lines."

"_You are still dealing with this situation admirably well. I doubt either of the groups here in Bayville would manage such a mature response_." He pointed out. She snorted in response.

"Please. The groups in Bayville have nothing on us! But we did get some new information through the mutant grapevine this week, and it's not good." Kudos to Shatter for having the balls to deliver it, though.

"_What might that be_?"

"Word on the street is that Magneto's recruiting for a new team of Acolytes, separate from his current one and the Brotherhood." Dissatisfaction seeped into her voice. "He's recruited Bolt for it already; don't know who else he has in reserve."

There was a slight pause on the other end. "_You're right; that isn't good news._" While he hadn't been there to see it first-hand, news of the fight in the cemetery against the older electrokinetic mutant had reached Zartan shortly afterward. He had been less than thrilled with that incident report. "_We haven't heard about any recruiting here, but if he wants to keep this new group a secret, as you believe he is, that isn't surprising._"

"I'd be willing to bet money that Sabretooth gets promoted into the new group, though." She grumbled. "Wouldn't surprise me if he's being sent here to deal with the cops, come to think of it."

"_You would be correct about that, which is why you are all staying on base this weekend."_ Zartan ordered. "_There are more than enough issues for you kids to deal with; the last thing any of us need is for one of you to get killed for jumping into the middle of whatever mess Magneto is trying to create."_

Andi unsuccessfully bit back a growl. She didn't like having to step aside and watch while things played out. Although, if her dad had his cell phone on him, she might be able to get a hold of him and tell him that she had this Chicago situation handled just fine without his interference. "So all I can do is sit back and wait for them to screw things up?"

"_Yes, that is what you will do unless you receive new orders from one of us here in Bayville_." Her employer and mentor responded in the most serious tone he could muster. "_Do I make myself clear?_"

"Crystal." She grumbled, not bothering to hide her ire.

"_I know you don't like it, but for the moment it is what you have to do_." He sighed. "_The Brotherhood is starting to suspect that someone is watching them; confirming that suspicion would be dangerous for all of you kids_."

"You sure we can't just kill Magneto and move on?" Andi pleaded hopefully. "I think we could get Kris in close enough to run a wooden stake through his heart. Or just let her rip it out wholesale..." For such a tiny, mostly-harmless-looking creature, Eventide could inflict some truly grisly injuries, many of which could be fatal.

"_Much as I would love to do so, it's not my call_." He admitted. "_For now, we'll have to make do with staying well below his radar. Can you manage that?_"

"We've managed for two years; what's a few more weeks?" She shrugged.

"_Good girl_." He praised. "_However, if I hear that you're doing something foolish there in Chicago, I will personally fly out there and deal with you_." She knew it was more of a promise than a threat. The blonde mutant also knew that she probably wouldn't like his manner of punishment if he had to fly halfway across the country to deal with her, so she intended to stick with the plan for as long as she could manage.

Intentions, alas, would only last her a week, during which time all hell seemed to have broken loose upon Chicago and her own personal life.


	5. Sins of Our Fathers

**Shake Your Foundations**

**5. Sins of Our Fathers**

It had not been a very good Tuesday in Chicago, especially not if you happened to answer to Burn-Out, Gnawgahyde, or Heart-Wrencher. Yes, Zartan had made an appearance in-person over the weekend (more to keep the kids from jumping into a brawl than anything else), but he'd left for New York once again Sunday afternoon, which was inconveniently when the whole mess started.

It started when Destro made a surprise visit Sunday night to "observe their progress" (a blatant fib; they all knew that Zartan found a way to blackmail the Scottish Laird into kid-wrangling until the full aftermath of the Chicago Incident could be determined). Two days later, the arms dealer was still looking over their shoulders. That in and of itself would have been cause for concern, but unfortunately it wasn't their only problem.

What had started as an unfortunate incident involving two members of the Chicago Police Department and a scared mutant teenager getting shot had escalated into a full-fledged beat-down between the X-Men and Acolytes Sunday night. A brawl like that on _their_ turf was something nobody in the house particularly liked, but Zartan made it abundantly clear during his recent visit that they were to stay out of this mess for as long as was physically possible. Further complicating matters, Sabretooth had rather gruesomely massacred the officers involved last night and had yet to skip town. Just as they came up with some good information to release to the press about them, too!

Finally, to add even more of a headache to this whole mess, Atlantis had disappeared from the base. She had been gone for two hours and no-one on base had any idea where she had run off to; her disappearance hadn't even been noticed until nearly an hour after she left. She'd left her motorcycle at home, choosing to walk to her destination and taking one of the telepathy jammers and a hologram projector with her.

Needless to say, nobody was in a good mood right now.

Despite it being a weekday (meaning he _should_ have still been pretending to teach at Bayville High School), Zartan was on a flight back to Chicago. This had been arranged once he saw the morning recount of Sabretooth's latest job. Despite that bit of "good" news, there was still the worry that by the time the Dreadnok leader's flight landed, it would be too late to stop Andi from getting herself into serious trouble.

"I don't get it." Kristen shook her head in confusion. She was curled up on one of the couches with a heating pad in her lap. "Where would she be going? And why walk there?"

"It'd be easier to figure it out if you'd get yer vampire arse off the bloody sofa and find her!" Virus snipped impatiently at the dhampir.

"Your total lack of understanding of female anatomy and physiology is astounding." Regan folded her arms. "The best she can do is wait a couple hours and hope the cramps stop long enough for her to pick up a scent trail."

"Especially since Mimic ain't quite learned to follow one yet." Bryan snorted.

"That's not my fault!" Mimic grumbled, looking up from his video game. "I don't get to use that power often, so I don't get any real experience with it!"

Destro pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling another migraine coming on. Damn Dreadnoks and their damned uncontrollable children…

"I say she's pullin' a page out of 'er old man's book and not coming back." Thrasher boasted. The black-and-green-haired Belgian would be incredibly glad to be rid of the annoying little brat. "Spawn of Sabretooth's more trouble than she's worth, if you ask me."

"Nobody did, and nobody will ever." Gnawgahyde glared at the Thunder Machine driver as Destro had an epiphany of sorts.

"Spawn of… You said her father was still in town?" The arms dealer asked.

"Yeah, been loitering for the better part of a week. Probably hasn't left yet." Gnawgahyde shrugged, clearly not having put the pieces together.

"Well, hell." Heart-Wrencher sighed, rubbing her temples. "She's been tryin' to call him all of this past week and he hasn't answered. But do you think she'd really take off just to yell at him?"

"It'll be more than yelling." Kristen shifted so that she was sitting upright. "Those two are incapable of having a disagreement without throwing stuff at each other or inflicting bodily harm."

"And if both of 'em are spoiling for a fight, she'll wind up looking like a scratching post or worse." Burn-Out groaned, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was getting dark outside… Man like Sabretooth would probably head out to some dive of a bar where nobody asked questions. "We're gonna have to hit every seedy bar in town."

"There's at least seven of 'em!" Ren grumbled, throwing her hands up in the air. "And not a one of 'em close to each other! Even if we split off, we'd still be looking all night."

Point taken, Destro thought. There were only five adults, four if you were counting the ones who would actually be _useful_ in a search party. "Which ones are the worst of the worst?" He inquired. "He's not likely to stop at anything other than those."

"Let's see…" Gnawgahyde thought a moment, "there's Tino's on the north side, but someone with an enhanced sense of smell ain't gonna want to go in there."

"Yeah, place smells like ass and barf all rolled in together." Ren wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Hog Haven's more our end of town, but since he's been avoiding her, that's out…"

"What about that one place Socks and the delivery driver were talking about?" Steve spoke up, recalling the conversation between one of Burn Out's shop hands and the driver for the company they ordered some of their parts from.

"Yeah. They said it had an old picture of some stripper over the door." Mimic added.

"Murray's place?" Burn Out gaped in surprise. "I thought it closed down a few years back."

"Apparently it's under new management, because they called it something else." Steve sighed. "But you know where it is, right?"

"Sounds like our bar." Gnawgahyde admitted. "But she left hours ago."

"Which means she is most likely there already." Destro sighed.

"Uh, aren't you guys forgetting something?" Bryan asked, looking at the clock.

"Like what?" Virus asked. "We found her! Let's go, people!"

"Well, somebody's gonna have to fill the boss in when he gets here." The Texan boy drawled. "His flight should be in pretty quick like."

Burn-Out swore under his breath. "Well, the private airstrip's not too far out of the way. We'll stop off and get him before we go drag her home. Is the infirmary stocked?" He had a bad feeling that they'd wind up needing it.

"As far as we know, it is." Kristen looked up at him. "A couple of us can take stock while you go drag her stubborn ass back here."

"I'll stay and help them with it." Ren offered. "You boys go on ahead and ride out. If we're right about this, she's gonna look like one helluva train wreck if we don't find her soon."

* * *

Oblivious to the panic her home base had been thrown into by her disappearance, Andi managed to make her way to a bar on the other end of town. The place had seen better days; boards were weather-beaten and broken; the once-spectacular image of a woman painted above the front door had been faded so much it was barely visible. The old name, "Murray's Bar", had been replaced by a cheesy-looking banner that read "Wet Willy's Saloon". All in all, it looked like just about every other dive bar her father had dragged her to during the brief time they travelled together. His motorcycle, a sleek red Harley-Davidson, was clearly visible in the half-empty parking lot.

There would be no turning back now. Even amongst all the smoke and alcohol, he would be able to pick out her scent and she knew it. However, she couldn't take the chance that he'd ignore her again, so she switched on the hologram projector (designed to look like an ordinary belt buckle) and entered the bar under the guise of a bleached blonde twenty-something year old woman. The clothes themselves didn't change, though.

His amber eyes zeroed in on her as she walked inside, intently trying to figure out just what she was doing here. "Now, now, you didn't think you were going to avoid me _**that**_easily, did you, Victor?" She asked in an icy tone. She wasn't about to be caught calling him 'dad' in a place full of large smelly men she didn't work with.

"What the hell are _you_ doing here?" He growled, not amused at all with her presence in the bar or the tight-fitting clothes she wore as part of the act. In fact, she _knew_ the denim lace-up vest she'd pilfered from Zarana's closet had to be driving him mad.

"We need to talk." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Alone." Cat-calls from a few drunkards at the worn-out pool table sounded at that comment. Another, much more dangerous growl sounded from Sabretooth.

"You got some damn nerve showing up here, actin' like this!" He snarled, leaving his spot at the bar and marching over to her. He was trying to intimidate her into backing down, and a few years ago it would have worked. But she'd gotten older and smarter (or just too damn stubborn for her own good…) since then, and stood her ground.

"Learned it from you." She growled back.

Apparently, that was enough to thoroughly piss him off (all according to plan). Grabbing her roughly by the arm, he physically dragged her outside and attempted to throw her down onto the gravel parking lot. She managed to catch herself before she landed on her ass. "Just what the hell do you think…"

"I could ask you the same damn question!" She hissed, pulling herself back up onto her feet. "_You're_ the one who started invading _my_ goddamn turf!" For braver or stupider, she decided that throwing a handful of gravel at him would be a wise decision.

An enraged roar sounded as the gravel made contact with his skin. Not known for displaying self-control at the best of times, Sabretooth lunged forward and raked his three-inch-long claws across her left cheek. "Wouldn't have to if you'd _manage_ it right!"

He seemed to have forgotten that she wasn't the small, bony thirteen-year-old he'd left behind in a motel room anymore. Though still shorter than him, she towered over her housemates at an impressive six feet and had finally put on enough muscle mass to look 'healthy', as Burn-Out put it (verses the "anorexic" before picture). She lashed out with her own sharp fingernails (not really claws, but longer than average and filed to ragged points), reaching for the exposed (if hairy) skin under his chin. He moved too quickly for her to hit anything vital, but the strike still cut him open…briefly. His healing factor ensured it didn't stay open for longer than a few seconds. "Just 'cause it ain't the way YOU do it don't mean it ain't effective!" Perhaps a bit blindly, she tried to land another blow with her left hand (as opposed to the one she'd just made with her right).

Okay, so it was a **really** blind strike. He mercilessly forced her arm down with his fist, somehow managing to keep his face neutral as a faint snap was heard. "You weren't doin' a damn thing!" The next real blow was one to her chest. That time she _knew_ she felt something crack as all the air was forcibly exhaled from her lungs, even as she realized that—just a little bit—he was pulling his punches for her. He didn't want her dead; just properly 'punished' for daring to challenge him to a fight. "You just sat there and let them get away with it!"

However, this wasn't the first time she'd had to fight with broken bones, a fact he should have remembered from when he (begrudgingly) aided her and a few other kids in escaping the labs. She ducked under his next blow (meant for her shoulder, more than likely), and continued moving forward and under his arm, the razor-sharp fin on her "good" arm taking out a long, deep trench of skin from his side. "Blacklisting them is not considered 'getting away' with anything." She growled, panting slightly for breath as the pain on her left side caused her to bite back a moan. That hit to the chest might have done more damage than just a couple cracked ribs, but she didn't have time to stop and evaluate injuries right now. "Sometimes a job needs less brute force and a little more…" now behind him, she kicked out with her right leg, nailing him in the back of his right knee, "_finesse_."

More animalistic roars pierced the night air as he was forced to take a step forward to balance himself before turning around. "Finesse takes too long for my taste." A low, menacing growl rumbled out of his throat as he rushed her, pushing her off her feet and down onto the gravel lining the parking lot. He crouched over her, fully prepared to start punching her in order to force some of his idea of sense and respect into his youngest child.

A yelp of surprise left his lips and his eyes widened as a knife blade stabbed its way through his gut. The wide-eyed feral looked down at his daughter. Andi shot him a sneer. "_You_ just don't know how to use it right." She held the knife in place with her injured arm and used the blade-like fin on her other arm to help push his off to one side. As she desperately tried to catch her breath again, she wondered just how she was going to push herself back on her feet now that she had rolled onto her "good" side.

She was trying to work out the logistics of that problem when he came back for another round. She'd managed to get into a somewhat-bent-over position with her weight on her one good arm as his claws tore up her back and "bad" arm. He then grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and hauled her onto her feet, making sure she was facing him. "You listen here and you listen good." He snarled. "I ain't gonna have no cocky young pup tellin' me how I should conduct **my** business…"

"I won't have a bitter old man telling me how to 'conduct' mine, either!" She could hear the sound of sirens approaching—apparently the barkeep drew the line at watching big mountain men beat the hell out of a woman half their age (or in this case, less than one-tenth of their age). "Get your flea-ridden ass out of my town, Victor!" Dammit, _why_ did it hurt so f'ing much to breathe?

You'd have thought she slapped him from the look on her face. Up until tonight, she hadn't called him much else but "Dad" and a few swear words. "You don't have to make it like this…"

"Too bad, because you already did!" Those sirens were much closer now. "Your 'dad' privileges are revoked until further notice." Unless he just **wanted** to get arrested, he should leave now…

A brief flash of alarm and regret crossed his face, but it didn't last more than a second. "Don't come cryin' back to me when this doesn't work out!" He snarled angrily.

"Stay the fuck away and I won't need to!" She shouted at him as he swung easily onto his motorcycle and started it. In a matter of moments he was fleeing the scene, leaving her to wonder just how in the world she was going to get home…and blinded by jeep headlights.

Wait a minute…since when did Chicago P.D. use a jeep?

* * *

Predictably, Zartan's mood did not improve as he and his Dreadnoks raced to get to Atlantis "in time", whatever that meant. Someone had already radioed for the nearest Terror Dome to send a doctor over ASAP, just in case her injuries were worse than cuts and bruises. He wasn't happy about having a stranger loitering around one of his bases or treating one of his employees, but at the moment it couldn't be helped. There was no way he was willing to risk taking her to a hospital, given the rather obvious nature of her mutation.

"She's already fighting…and losing." Gnawgahyde grumbled, using the squawk box in his jeep to communicate with the rest of the group. "Cops were just called to break up the fight."

Yes, Police scanners were nice things to have. In fact, so were used sirens, discarded due to supposed malfunctions. Through Virus's genius, they'd managed to get a couple of them working again. Such devices were quite helpful at times like these, he decided as he placed a "portable" flashing siren onto the roof of the car and turned it on. Anyone not paying attention would presume the dark-colored sedan to be a police cruiser.

"Not much farther to go." Burn-Out grunted. "Think he'll still be there when we show up?" He made no attempt to hide the disgust in his tone.

"Doubtful." Destro grumbled from his position in the driver's seat-it had been faster to simply jump in the car than argue about who was more qualified to drive. "He is probably under orders from his superior not to get arrested."

"Looks like him pulling out up there." Gnawgahyde observed, noticing a motorcycle tear out of the dimly-lit parking lot ahead. "Now where could she…Cor Blimey!" The jeep came to an abrupt halt part of the way into the gravel lot, headlights illuminating the bloodied form of a young woman.

The car wasn't even stopped yet when Zartan bailed out and ran toward the girl. The hologram projector didn't disguise the numerous bleeding slashes and gouges covering the upper half of her body, one set of which raked across her face. Her left arm was bent at a slightly wrong angle and she appeared to be having breathing problems. Disbelieving eyes blinked up at him. "Get in the car before the real authorities show up!" He urged her. Their siren had since been cut off, but other, more distant ones could be heard approaching.

Although her legs appeared mercifully uninjured, she didn't move. "You came here?" She asked, a vacant expression on her face.

"Car. Now." He roughly grabbed her shoulders and guided her toward the vehicle. Shock seemed to already be setting in with a vengeance, aggravated by blood loss from the still-leaking wounds that covered her frame. Once she was safely seated in the back of the car, he climbed inside as well. "Let's get out of here!"

* * *

"How bad is it?" Bryan asked as Zartan wandered out into the hallway and the Cobra-funded physician brushed passed them in order to wash up and change into clean scrubs. A faint spattering of blood was visible on the man's blue scrubs. Zartan wasn't wearing scrubs, but had stayed well within eyeshot of whatever the doctor had bend doing. The teens had gathered outside the infirmary doors, anxious to get an update on their squad leader.

"Left arm was fractured; had to completely break it so it would set right. He had to sedate her before doing that, which was a good thing since he had to cut her open to re-set her ribs anyway." Zartan sighed, clearly suffering from both stress and jet-lag at the moment. "She had three broken ribs, and the force behind those injuries left a puncture wound in one of her lungs. Looked like a small tear and a lot of bruising to me, but the 'good', and I use the term loosely, doctor is staying here for the next few hours in case that leads to something more life-threatening. I lost count of the stitches once we went over thirty and don't even get me started on the bruises…"

"And we're sure her dad did this to her and not some other feral mutant?" Mimic asked, disbelief apparent in his facial expression.

"I believe it." Regan snorted. "He abandoned her at a cheap motel when she decided to form a team instead of just following him around; why not jump from abandonment to abuse?"

"He won't be doing that to her anymore." Zartan responded flatly. "I don't care how much DNA they have in common, she is not coming within a hundred miles of him without my express permission."

"Oughta be easy, since she won't be going anywhere until she heals up." Burn-Out stated. "She's officially on the bench until further notice."

"Since I doubt she'll be allowed to leave the infirmary for the next week, you shouldn't have any issues monitoring her." The Dreadnok leader sighed. "It's once she's cleared to _leave_ that the problems usually start."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." Heart-Wrencher waved. "With injuries like those, she won't even want to get out of bed for a while."

"Yeah, even she knows when to sit back and rest." Bryan shrugged. "You need us here for anything, Boss?" Zartan shook his head.

"No, you kids go on back upstairs. She won't be awake for several hours yet."

"And it's dinner time." Mitch nodded sagely, causing Burn-Out to chuckle. Teenage boys always seemed to think about food…

"Are you not going back with us?" Neal frowned at their employer, who made no move to leave the area.

"No, I am not." Truth be told, he didn't feel comfortable with leaving her in the next room, helpless and unaware of what was going on while some strange doctor wandered through the base. Someone needed to stay with her, just to be sure the stranger didn't try to slip in any unauthorized/unnecessary treatments while no one was looking. "I need to call back to Bayville and apprise them of the situation here, anyway."

Destro, who had been standing quietly next to the wall, winced. Despite his informing her of the urgent need for Zartan's return, the Baroness remained unconvinced of the gravity surrounding this turn of events. He knew that a lot of screaming and shouting would accompany that phone call.

"If you say so…" The Bangledeshi teen didn't look entirely convinced, but followed his teammates and handlers upstairs anyway. Destro fell into step behind them, determined to have a say in whatever thrown-together mish-mash "dinner" would consist of tonight.

With one last glance at their retreating forms, Zartan turned around and walked back into the medical bay.


	6. The Morning After

**Shake Your Foundations**

**6. The Morning After**

Thanks in no small part to the sedatives and painkillers in her system, Andi slept through most of the night despite her broken arm and ribs. During that time, Zartan refused to leave her bedside. If it hadn't been for doctors popping in every hour or so to check on her condition, he would have sneaked the dog into the infirmary. She handled confinement in the infirmary a lot better when one or both of the animals stayed with her.

He was re-reading a Russian arms manual when she began to stir, a groggy moan sounding from her lips as she tried to re-adjust herself. Deep blue eyes flew open as the pain forced her into awareness, causing her to sit nearly bolt upright in the bed. He quickly set the book on the food tray and moved to stop her from slamming herself back against the bed too quickly. "Easy, little one." He told her as he hit a button on the side of the medical bed, causing the front third of it to rise to a slightly-upright position. Once he felt assured that she wouldn't hurt herself in the process, he released his tentative hold on her, allowing her to fall against the raised mattress.

It was then that she seemed to notice the cast on her left arm and the oxygen tube running under her nose. "Huh?" She scrunched her eyebrows together in confusion, her good hand reaching up for the oxygen tube.

He immediately swatted her hand back down. "Don't try to move anymore, and you had _certainly_ better not try to remove any tubing or needles." He kept his tone soft and even, not wanting to agitate her. "You took quite a beating last night."

"...How bad was it?" She murmured. She winced as she lay her hand back down on the mattress, likely the result of pulling at the stitches running across her chest.

"Three broken ribs requiring minor surgery to fix, a punctured lung which resulted from the broken ribs, a fractured left arm that the technicians needed to break to properly re-set, and no fewer than thirty stitches." Not counting the ugly purplish-black bruises already covering her skin, he thought to himself as he sat down next to her on the bed. "What the hell were you thinking? You can't just run off like that and not tell anyone where you're going! If we had shown up any later than we did to that dump of a bar, you would probably be dead!"

"He wouldn't have left me there if the cops hadn't been called; never has any other time we've fought." She sighed, the look of pain in her eyes saying much more than she knew.

"Does this happen_ every_ time you two had a fight?" Try as he might, the mercenary could not keep the anger out of his voice. Sure, there had been times where he and Zanya had gotten into some rather loud screaming matches, but he'd never hit her during any of them. The only time they ever traded blows was during training sessions.

"…not usually this bad." She admitted softly. "I think he was trying to punish me for something." She refused to look him in the eyes, focusing on her hands instead.

"That was a torture session, not a punishment." He corrected her. "You won't be doing any work until those injuries have properly healed, which was likely why he inflicted them in the first place."

"I'll take this over sleeping in the bathtub while he and the hooker go at it on the motel bed." As soon as the mumbled words left her mouth, he could tell she regretted it. Her uninjured hand immediately moved to cover her mouth as her eyes went wide with shock. Zartan clenched his fists.

"There will certainly be no more of **that**." Of all the detestable things to put a child through… "In fact, you will not be spending any time with that animal in the foreseeable future. This has gone far enough."

Terrified sapphire eyes stared back at him. "No! I shouldn't have said… He never actually…"

"Child, if you_ lie_ to me, I _will_ have you pulled off the team indefinitely."

"B-B-But...but he's my dad!" She gazed back at him, uncertainty swirling behind her eyes. "He loses it sometimes, but he's still family."

A forlorn sigh escaped his lips. "You may not understand this right at the moment, but I am going to say it anyway. Just because you share the same DNA with him does **not** give him the right to treat you like this." How someone could do this to their own child was beyond him, even _after_ living through all the years of Cobra Commander's terrible attempts at parental concern. It just didn't make sense to him. "You do not owe that man anything."

She looked down at the dog again, confusion and other emotions he knew she didn't understand swirling through her mind as her scales turned a muted blue-gray color. "...He saved my life."

"And has done nothing but ruin it since." Zartan remarked. "Just how did you children come to be wandering in this business unsupervised, again?"

Even her eyes became a duller shade of blue. "I chose working with a team over him. He didn't want to deal with the other kids." A shiver started at her shoulders and rippled across the rest of her body. She did **not** handle emotional turmoil well at all, and it tended to manifest physically.

"That was his _excuse_. If he was so willing to make you sleep in the bathtub, of all places, he obviously did not want you there to begin with."

Another twitch shook her, temporarily robbing her of the ability to speak. Tears formed in her eyes as she fought to contain the emotions she did not want to feel. He hadn't seen her look _this_ conflicted or confused since her suicide attempt two years ago.

He placed his left hand on her right shoulder. "You don't need to fight it, kiddo." He used a lower and gentler tone of voice to communicate with her this time. "It's okay to let it go. It'll only make you feel better."

The girl would never _admit_ to it, but she was definitely the kind to snuggle up to another person if she felt scared or confused. He'd lost count of how many times she'd drifted off to sleep with her head on his shoulder during their "let's watch a foreign language channel" sessions when her nightmares kept her awake after everyone else had gone to sleep. No matter how tough and independent she was during the day, she simply could not keep it up once the night terrors came.

So when she finally gave in and buried her face in his shoulder, he wasn't surprised. She couldn't seem to find her voice, only managing agitated moans and whimpers as she tried to tell him something. "Ssshhh." He soothed, stroking her golden hair with his ungloved (he really hadn't had time to put his uniform on before flying out last night) hand. "I know, kid. I know."

…And this was the scene that Destro chanced upon as he tried to find the Dreadnok leader and discuss what the next plan of action might be. The Scottish laird wasn't entirely sure what to make of what was in front of him. Sure, he knew that Zartan was rather fond of the girl, but he hadn't realized that the mercenary had _adopted_ her. It was a rather startling revelation, one that the arms dealer might be able to use against Zartan at a later date. For now, however, the girl and her health took priority over all else, and he wasn't foolish enough to think that the Dreadnoks' leader wouldn't pick a fight if anyone tried to convince him otherwise.

It was in that frame of mind that the Scotsman turned on his heels and returned in the direction he came from. The sun's rays were barely peeking over the horizon outside; he would have the entire morning to speak to the mercenary. Now, if only this base had some proper tea…

* * *

"...How's she doing?" Zarana asked, looking at her older brother through the video chat monitor. It didn't look like Zartan had gotten any sleep last night, which wasn't a good thing since he'd already been up for the last two nights straight. That meant something was wrong.

"Not well, but she's stable for the moment." He answered with a sigh. He would rather like to get some sleep while everyone else was preoccupied with other things, but any attempts at that could wait until Destro had left the compound. "Not happy about needing an oxygen tube, but until the doctors are confident that she won't suffer any further damage to her left lung, she'll have to deal with it."

"Sounds like that monster Sabertooth did a number on 'er." She frowned. "How are we going to stop him from doing anything else to her?" From the report he gave last night, the kid must look like death warmed over. She didn't want to take any chance of the girl's dead-beat father deciding to start round two anytime soon.

"She's banned from going anywhere near him for the foreseeable future, but I don't know that we can legally stop him from trying to get to her." He was far from pleased with that. Unfortunately, the only person who would have any idea how the custody arrangements were ordered was her mother, a women whose identity and recent contact information Andi had doggedly refused to disclose. He hadn't pressed the issue before, as the woman was obviously content to let Andi remain in Chicago; due to recent events, he felt it would be a good idea to track the woman down and question her. If he played it right, he might be able to gain full custody of the girl. "Whenever you have time, start looking through Andi's records and see if you can come up with her mother's name and last known address. If we can find her and inform her of this recent development, then we might be able to strip Sabretooth of his visiting rights…if he ever had them to start with."

"I can put a rush order on this, if we need to." Zandar offered. "Getting this sorted out is more important than the mission."

"I highly doubt that the Baroness or Cobra Commander will share that opinion." Zartan scoffed. "Destro maybe, but not those two." The arms dealer took family matters very seriously as long as the family involved was his own.

"We may not get to it for a while otherwise." Zarana frowned. "Not with all the craziness that goes on at this school."

"I understand that, but between the three of us, we should be able to narrow this down in a couple of weeks."

"If we're still here in a couple of weeks." Zandar grumbled, rubbing his eyes. "If we get lucky, we'll be out of here before then."

"Doesn't mean we should give up searching, though." His twin sister shook her head. "Summer break is coming up fast; last thing we need is for him to decide he wants to acknowledge she exists by dragging her away from us. Sad as it is, I think we're the only _stable_ home she's had in a long time."

"...That's both heartwarming _and_ disturbing." Zandar stated. Dreadnoks and stability tended not to mix well with each other.

"I will be flying back in tonight." Zartan swiftly re-directed the conversation topic. "We can have a more in-depth discussion then. We also need to make plans for once our little spitfire gets out of the infirmary."

"We'll worry about that once she's actually able to put up a fight again." Zarana waved. "I don't think she'll be giving anyone a lot of trouble for now. Of course, once she feels well enough to walk, that'll change."

"It usually does." Zandar shrugged. His sister ignored it.

"Just try to get her to realize you're not just abandoning her to the Medi-Vipers, will ya?" She stared directly at her older brother's image on the display monitor. "I know it sounds stupid, but she needs to know you're actually going to come back for her."

Two years ago he might have argued that point, but after everything the team and their handlers had been through, Zartan had to concede that his sister was correct in that observation. "No, after what happened last night—what has apparently been happening for about three years, she certainly needs that reassurance."

* * *

"...So, she's awake now?" Neal asked tentatively after Zartan finally emerged from the basement levels of the compound.

"She is conscious, yes, but don't all of you rush down there at once." He admonished, glaring at the kids from his spot next to the coffee pot and the toaster. "She's still very weak." Hence why she would be getting toast for breakfast instead of something more substantial.

"In other words, only two of us at a time and only for a few minutes." Regan remarked. "We understand."

"Yeah, but what will we tell Spike Freeman when he calls about this?" Mimic frowned. "He's gonna need a damn good reason to write her out of the next few episodes."

"We can tell him she had a nasty dirt bike accident and was seriously injured." Zartan sighed. It was the only excuse he could come up with that would explain Andi's injuries outside of a wild animal attack. Given what an adrenaline junkie the kid was once she was put in the driver's seat of anything with a motor and wheels, he was confident that the television producer would accept it without difficulty. "It's her I'm more concerned with."

"We can keep an eye on her…at least until she gets released from the infirmary." Heart-Wrencher spoke up. "It'll get a little trickier once she's cleared to leave; we're a little short-handed around here right now."

"I will attempt to speed up the mission in Bayville, but the success or failure of that endeavor is currently in the hands of the Baroness." He frowned. If he'd been in charge of this operation, he'd have a good chunk of the Brotherhood working for him by now.

A chorus of groans and a few errant expletives followed that statement. He pretended he didn't hear them and turned his attention back to the toaster.

"When can we go down to visit her?" Bryan asked slowly as the toaster finally coughed up the two pieces of bread Zartan had shoved into it earlier. They were a little closer to burnt than the mercenary wanted, but given how many complaints had been filed about that particular kitchen appliance, he supposed he should feel thankful that it hadn't come back up looking like two bread-shaped lumps of charcoal.

"Once she's had a chance to eat her own breakfast, I'd imagine." Kristen remarked, giving the much taller teenager a look that clearly read 'what-kind-of-stupid-question-was-that?'. "Give her another half hour to get her bearings straight and _then_ we can go down to visit."

"I had better not catch anyone trying to sneak in before she asks for visitors…or hear about any of you doing so when she's resting later on." Zartan stated. Virus, despite his claims of _not _being afraid of the Dreadnok master of disguise, gulped when the man turned an angry glare upon him. Steve bit back a grin as he watched the creepy little technopath squirm.

"In other words, give her some space." Burn-Out sighed. "She's got a lot to sort out right now and nothing to take her mind off thinking about it."


	7. Second Hand News

**Shake Your Foundations**

**7. Second Hand News**

Given Andi's well-documented tendency to rip out her stitches (not to mention aggravating other injuries she would have), a betting pool had been started among the Dreadnoks over how long it would take for her to undo some of the Medi-Vipers' hard work. Nearly two weeks passed without an injury report, but that all changed this morning. Zartan had hoped that she would hold off another week on trying to re-injure herself, as she had only been released from the infirmary a few days ago. He'd thought she would still be too weak to try anything, but after fielding a frantic phone call from Gnawgahyde retelling of the teenager's attempt to work the paint sprayer with a broken arm and several cracked or broken ribs, Zartan was forced to admit that the only way to keep the girl out of trouble was to keep her where he could personally keep an eye on her. That meant bringing her to Bayville and coming up with a convincing cover story.

His newly-rediscovered social life was going to suffer for this decision.

In the days and weeks since his trip to retrieve his wayward apprentice, a lot had happened in Bayville. Magneto discovered the Joes' listening devices (that Cobra had been tapping into as well) and blamed the X-Men for their presence in the Brotherhood house. Zarana was apparently sleeping with that Joe nerd-boy again, only this time the Baroness found out and Zarana used the 'just plying him for information' excuse (which actually worked, for once) to stay out of trouble. And, he was _finally_ getting some much needed (and certainly deserved at this point) action from a certain redheaded shape-shifter. If things went his way, he would soon start making plans to subtly replace Cobra Commander's incompetent leadership with a little bit of help from Mystique.

Still, there were times when he felt an odd sense of déjà vu when he looked at her. They'd never met in-person before this mission; all he'd known of her before now was her codename, a laundry list of her past completed missions, and a bunch of grainy, unfocused surveillance camera snapshots. Seeing her in person shouldn't have triggered the 'I've seen your face somewhere before' and 'that voice of yours sounds familiar' moments he'd been having lately and he was at a loss for another explanation.

However, with Andi flying out later this week, his focus would need to stay on her and not his new lover. Of course, he would also need somebody to look after the kid while he was teaching class…

This was going to be a very _long_ week.

* * *

"Daughter?" A puzzled Principal Kelly blinked. He and Vice Principal Gyrich were in his office. Mr. Tanzar—the new chemistry teacher—stood in front of them. "You have a daughter?"

"She lives with my ex-wife during the school year." The blond man sighed as he explained the situation. "Two weeks ago she was involved in a serious dirt-bike accident, which is why I left in such a rush that Tuesday. She was released from the hospital over the weekend, but since her mother is _apparently_ more devoted to her career than our child's health, she's managed to rip out a few of her stitches and almost re-broke her arm."

"And you want to enroll her here?" Kelly frowned in concern. Gyrich scowled and crossed his arms, but remained silent. Mr. Tanzar shook his head.

"Oh no, not at the moment. I don't know that she has enough strength back to deal with a full class day, let alone this school's gym classes." That comment earned a groan from Kelly. "However, Bayville High has a student body sizable enough that allowing her to audit a few classes while she heals should not cause any issues."

"Trying to pawn a trouble-maker off on us, are you?" Gyrich sneered. Mr. Tanzar didn't even flinch at the red-haired bespectacled man's accusation.

"While she can be rather passionate about her beliefs, my daughter is not the kind of girl who goes _looking_ for trouble." He remarked. "If any of the students here, especially the male students, try to start trouble with her, I am confident that she and the other teachers are capable of dealing with the situation."

"And her presence as a part-time student would be temporary?" Principal Kelly inquired.

"Yes. Once she's completely healed up, she will move back in with her mother."

"Then I see no reason why not to let her audit a few classes, provided she doesn't distract the other students."

"Oh, I think her causing a distraction is the least of your concerns, Principal Kelly." Mr. Tanzar reassured. "She should be arriving sometime tomorrow night, so expect her on campus Thursday."

* * *

"_Daughter_?" Gung-Ho gaped. The Joe team posing as substitute teachers had gathered in the computer room, listening to audio footage from the listening device they placed in Principal Kelly's office.

"That's what he told Kelly and Gyrich, at any rate." Mainframe admitted. "However, since I'm relatively sure that Zanya's _already_ sneaking around here as one of the students, I'd be willing to bet that whoever's coming here is one of those mutant teenagers he's training."

"An injured mutant teenager, judging by that story." Alpine stroked his scruffy beard thoughtfully. "Do we have any files on those kids?" He asked. Mainframe sighed.

"We **do**, but they're all at least a year out of date. Since we got them directly from SHIELD, it's probably more like two years. I'll see if I can't dig up some more current information on them."

"And how do you plan to do that?" Falcon remarked. "Go ask them nicely?"

"Why not?" The computer specialist shrugged. "If the kid's injured bad enough to warrant bringing her here and risk jeopardizing the assignment, he'd probably take whatever competent help he could get."

"What makes you so sure they would tell you the truth? The whole family is a bunch of lying, heartless killers." Jinx frowned. The female ninja wasn't in the best of moods and hadn't been since being assigned a mission in which she A) had to work with Falcon, and B) had to pretend to tolerate Zartan's continued existence. The Dreadnok leader was marked for death by their clan…but she was forbidden by the parameters of the mission to use deadly force on any of the Cobra operatives present unless a gunfight broke out between the groups.

Although she was beginning to wish she could stick a katana up Falcon's ass just to get him to stop making unwanted romantic advances toward her.

"Lying killers, yes. Definitely not heartless when it comes to protecting their own, though." Alpine reminded. "Didn't they once give us the location of one of Cobra's research bases just to rescue one of their people?"

"Zartan did it to save his sister during that face-stealing fiasco, yes. Low Light grumbled about it for a few days." Mainframe recalled. And when the normally silent sniper started grumbling about something like that, everybody tended to pay attention.

"Look, if they don't give us the files willingly, you can steal the files for us, Jinx." Gung-Ho shrugged. "Or Mainframe can try to hack into their databases, if Dreadnoks even _use_ databases…"

"The point to all of this is that we _desperately_ need updated files on those kids." Mainframe remarked. "We don't know if they've added more mutants to the team in the last year, or if it's still just the six kids that started this mess. Not knowing that is going to bite us in the ass eventually."

Falcon sighed, knowing that the older Joe had a point. They knew next to nothing about what Shadowatch had been up to in the last year and a half, or how much the team dynamics had changed. And, much as he hated it, the best way for them to get that much-needed information was to encourage Mainframe to continue fraternizing with Zarana. Nothing good could come of encouraging that romantic train-wreck. "We'll try the diplomatic approach first. If that doesn't work, we resort to more drastic and questionably legal measures. Just get us a copy of those files and see if you can't find out which kid is flying into town tomorrow evening."

* * *

The only good thing about being a gym teacher was the absence of papers to grade, Zarana decided. You worked the kids until they dropped, then sent them on to their next class. It was a wonderful system, or it would be if Falcon hadn't insisted on starting a goddamn war during every one of their class sessions. Honestly, why did they even _need_ two gym teachers? There was no reason why the girls couldn't play alongside the boys, especially in contact sports. If the guys got fresh, the girls would kick their asses (and possibly their crotches as well, offense pending). Segregating them like this was teaching the girls that they were somehow physically inferior to their male counterparts, which was so far from the truth that it resided in another galaxy. She was living proof of that.

But back to the absence of papers (which, after two years of filling in as a composition, literature, and foreign language instructor, was something worth savoring). She enjoyed having time to herself once class finished for the day. It meant she had more time to spend with Mainframe; more time to check and see how the kids were doing in Chicago; more time to think about the mess that had just transpired at their other base. A mess that, as of tomorrow, would be brought to the attention of those in Bayville.

The mercenary frowned at that thought. The school was a powder keg of tension as it was, and Andi—temperamental spitfire that she was—might just be the spark that caused it to explode. The kid would need to be cautious to the point of paranoia not to let her real identity slip. If anyone here found out she was Sabretooth's kid… she really didn't like what lay down that road.

Nervously toying with the USB drive in her left hand, she continued on her way to the computer lab. It was that wonderful time of day when both her class schedule and Blaine's allowed them forty-five minutes to themselves. Normally it was spent in rather intense, er, romantic ventures in one of the unused second-floor classrooms, but today she had other ideas in mind. Unfortunately, they involved business and not her personal pleasure.

It was a simple, yet extremely complex matter. Andi was still barely standing on her own power, so someone needed to keep an eye on her at all times. Despite the fact that she and her siblings were teaching at the school, there were certain time blocks where none of them would be available to supervise the girl. That meant Andi would inevitably be bored, and when Andi got bored, one of two things would happen. She would either get into fights, or come up with extremely creative ways of entertaining herself with whatever supplies were on hand. Since the kid's left arm was still in a cast and her ribs and lung barely healed, letting her get bored was simply not a very safe option.

But who do you ask to babysit a snarky, emotionally-damaged, mutant teenage girl? Not the Baroness. No, she was pitching the mother of all bitch-fits over Andi being brought here in the first place. That left the Joes, of which there were precious few potential candidates. Falcon wouldn't know what to do with her. Alpine was too busy trying to keep track of Bazooka. And Jinx…there was no way on heaven, earth, or hell that Zartan was going to let the female ninja near his favorite student. Not that she would even agree to it if they asked; she hated Zartan, and by extension of logic his 'clan' as well. That left only Gung-Ho and Mainframe as viable options. Gung Ho had experience with kids, and Mainframe actually _had_ a teenage daughter. They would be perfect for the job, if she and Zartan could get them to agree to it.

That's where the flash drive came in. As a show of 'good faith' (less that and more of the 'take this and get your information straight for once' line of thinking), Zartan had permitted her to hand over the basic team profiles. They weren't nearly as detailed as their own personal files, but for the moment the general Cobra database entries would suffice.

He was *just* signing off of the school computer when she entered the classroom. The double-take he did upon seeing her leaning against the doorframe was horribly distracting. Zarana found herself involuntarily smiling.

_Mainframe looks so damn cute when he is confused..._ Zarana thought.

"I didn't expect to see you here." The Joe computer specialist blinked, watching her intently as she ambled into the room and shut the door behind her.

"Sorry, luv, but this isn't a social call." She sighed. "You've got questions, we need a small favor, so why don't we make a deal?"

"What...kind of favor?" He frowned. Always beware of a Dreadnok asking for a favor; it often came to bite you in the arse later. Fortunately, Mainframe was smart enough to realize that.

"We need someone to keep an eye on our girl during fifth period, possibly first period on Thursday also, but that should be the only day you need to worry about that." The Dreadnok woman answered. "Can't leave her alone that long or she'll come up with creative new ways to injure herself, as she proved with the paint sprayer yesterday afternoon." Zartan had not been happy about fielding _that_ phone call.

"Depends…what do I get out of it?" He inquired. A mischievous smirk lit up her face.

"Besides my infinite gratitude and the _many_ ways I will thank you for this later? This." She held up the flash drive so he could see it. "Cobra's most recent files on Shadowatch, all conveniently in one place."

She knew he was on board with the idea now. There was that little glint in his brown eyes, the one that only showed up when he was feeling rather pleased about something. "I do believe you have yourself a deal, Zarana." He smiled. "Now, about those questions you mentioned earlier…"

"Her name should be the first one to pop up, since the codenames are listed in alphabetical order." She grinned, handing him the thumb drive. "But we haven't got around to updating it since all this shit happened two weeks ago, so there's nothing about the fight yet."

"Fight?" A flash of alarm crossed his face. "Shadowatch got into a fight? Was it with the Brotherhood? X-Men?"

"The whole team wasn't involved, just our squad leader and her..._**father**_." Zarana spat the word out of her mouth as if it were poisonous. That monster had no right… "Rest of the Brotherhood was long gone when this went down. She suffered a broken arm, a couple broken ribs, punctured lung, and more claw marks and bruises than I really want to think about. O'course with that damned healing factor of his, he got off without a scratch…"

Mainframe frowned, clearly thinking over the implications of what she'd just told him. "Her own father did this to her?"

"When that father happens to be a man who answers to 'Sabretooth', it's slightly less shocking but no less disturbing." She sneered. Mainframe's eyes widened in shock. "We're trying to track down her mother—the woman has primary custody, but we have no idea what kind of parental rights he's got. If we could find her and explain what happened, we'd at least be able to keep him from legally showing up to drag her off somewhere." But damn, that woman was hard to trace. Granted, they hadn't exactly had a lot of time to devote to looking, but it was still proving to be a tough search. From the looks of things, they'd need to hack into SHIELD's databases to see if they had any more information on the "shape-shifter, female" DNA sample that Mindbender got a close familial match from two years ago.

"…maybe I can help?" He offered. "Is the mother's last known contact information listed on this file?"

"Yes, but it's grossly inaccurate." Zarana remarked. "The apartment address hasn't had anyone living in it for close to a year and she's changed phone numbers. Andi might have the new one programmed into her phone, though." If she did, she hadn't volunteered that information. "We've got one more lead to chase down, and if that doesn't work, I'll let you know."

"Please do. No kid deserves to go through that." His eyes met hers and she promptly forgot how to breathe. Even after so many years, she still couldn't quite control herself whenever he gave her looks like that. "So, how do you want to spend the rest of our break time?" He asked, knowing they'd just spent a fair chunk of it discussing work-related problems—something neither of them particularly wanted to do when their time together was so short.

"If you recall, I _did_ say I would thank you for your help earlier." She purred, closing the space between them.

"Mmm. And just how do you plan to do that?" He murmured in her ear, the action sending and involuntary but not unwelcome shiver down her spine.

"Why don't we find somewhere a little more private and I'll show you?" The computer lab was hardly the place for this sort of activity.

"I think that can be arranged." He smiled. And in that moment, Zarana was content to forget all about the stress and drama of the last few days. She had him there with her, and she fully intended to make every second they had together count.


End file.
